Riverton Public School

Riverton Public School. . , When public education began here, there was no Riverton , or Palmyra , and the idea of public schools was so radical that there were few anywhere in America. Though the Quaker schools of Westfield and Moorestown Friends were formed by the 1790s, local children of other faiths had no options but to learn what they could from parents or, rarely, tutors., It was 1822. James Monroe was president and most everything west of Missouri was unexplored wilderness when our first little brick public school was built amidst farmland at Elm Avenue and Broad Street. When the Camden and Amboy Railroad built their tracks soon thereafter, they moved the school to what is now the intersection of Elm Terrace and Little Broad Street., Only a few dozen houses were within a reasonable distance of the school. Children attended when they could and completed the 8th grade. There was no tax to support education, so funds were raised from the parents and other members of the public., Many families were related or were close friends, a pattern which hasn't changed., The growth of Riverton, from its founding in 1851, overwhelmed this little school. It was retired in 1865, replaced by a somewhat larger frame school at the corner of 4th and Howard Streets, where the blacktop playground is today. It was called "Cinnaminson School #7" as Riverton was not yet an independent borough. It had a single teacher., Like many buildings of the time, it had neither indoor sanitation nor heat., Riverton continued to grow and in 1892 built a larger, 2-story frame school on the same site, this time with heat and indoor plumbing. The Porch Club helped found Burlington County's first kindergarten, opening in 1897 in the little chapel next door on 4th Street, formerly Riverton's first Catholic Church., At about the same time, Rivertonians elected Porch Club president Mary Van Meter Grice to be the first woman on a school board in the County., The 1910 school , Within a dozen years that building, too, became "entirely inadequate", so planning began for the larger brick school which forms the care of today's RPS at 600 Fifth Street. It opened during the 1910-1911 school year and its first 8th grade graduating class numbered nine students., It expanded in 1935, 1955 and 1974. Graduating class sizes since the 1920s generally averaged 25-30 students except during the Baby Boom when they doubled to about 60., RPS has adapted its curriculum, tools and techniques as the society changed around it. In the 1990s the school added personal computers and internet access and, in 2006, a preschool class., Where everybody knows your name , The culture of RPS is unusual in the 21st Century. Because families all live close by and many know each other, there is always somebody around that you know, somebody happy to help you., Most students walk every day and parents gather and get to know each other. The small classes and culture of respect which is consciously pursued in all classrooms from preschool through 8th grade to help create a family-like bond. Pictures on the walls from a century of graduating classes help students feel they have a place in this long history., RPS graduates have held class reunions and some return to raise their own children, who may be taught by the same teachers as their parents. It is a school where teachers dedicate their entire careers, a school central to the life of the town that treasures it.